Crypto currencies have become more and more popular, their use has been greatly democratized in recent years. However, it remains complicated to explain in detail what they are, how to generate them or what they are used for.
Therefore, the comparison is often made with mining, which everyone visualizes and assimilates. In essence, exploiting an oil deposit or a vein of gold means making a profit. So, the question is, what is the gain to the activity and especially the investment? In the case of crypto currencies, it is more or less the same issue.
Expenses, expenses, and more expenses
Roughly speaking, we can determine the initial investment by adding up the cost of the machines, the energy consumed and the maintenance of the mining system. But time (which is money, remember) should also be accounted for. However, its priceless and objective nature does not allow to know a precise and accounting value. In any case, with or without the time parameter, the equation is applicable when it comes to extracting oil or generating crypto currencies.
The difference is in the modus operandi to extract oil in large volume, it will be necessary to dig in the sea or the earth and build large structures requiring a large amount of energy to operate. Clearly, to mine crypto currencies, the investment is much lower. However, you should keep in mind that to get a good hash rate, you will need a computer with a good number of graphics cards and running 24/7.
The investment is not insignificant, it is still necessary to have at least 8 graphics cards, and to count on a crazy energy consumption that will impact your electric bill for sure.
The advantage of renting a dedicated server
The basic investment needed is often the cause of failure for home-made mining platforms. When you realize that you need to increase the subscribed power or you need to invest in GPUs, the accounts can start to get out of balance. Again, the comparison to the mining industry can apply: Leasing equipment and outsourcing tasks to reduce investments, optimize expenses and increase their profit.
If you decide to rent GPU servers, you will considerably reduce the expenses associated with the hardware, both in terms of purchase and maintenance (hardware and software). Above all, this option will avoid any loss of control over resources or decrease in performance.
Renting dedicated GPU servers greatly facilitates the work of miners starting in mining. But the biggest advantage remains the control of the budget, especially in terms of power consumption. All costs being fixed, it becomes much easier to plan a budget and to avoid bad surprises at the end of the month.
The dedicated Xeon GPU server
At IKOULA, we know how difficult it is to optimize investments to increase profits in the crypto-currency sector, that’s why we offer a dedicated server equipped with a GeForce GTX 1070 that displays an interesting performance / price ratio.
More concretely, we are talking about a power of 6.5 TFLOP, 8GB of DDR5 RAM and a speed of 1506 MHz. Features that, combined with the Pascal GPU architecture and its reduced size, allow for good results. Add to that an Intel Xeon E3 1230v5 processor with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of hard drive.
This performance is more than enough. However, if the mining starts to pay off and you want to add more capabilities, you can always double the graphics card, without dealing with the installation which will be done by our experts.
A few words about Bitcoin
We’ve talked about the expenses, now it’s time to talk about the benefits. First of all, which crypto currency should you mine? We advise you to focus on the crypto currencies that respond best to GPU mining and offer the best profitability. Due to its popularity, BitCoin is often the number one option for new miners, sometimes without considering its disadvantages.
The first disadvantage is its volatility in the markets. There have been countless spikes and sharp declines in its value that have caused investors to be wary.
Fortunately, BitCoin is not the only option, many other currencies have entered the market. This is for example the case of Monero, which exploded thanks to Microsoft and its inclusion in a BlockChain As A Service project.
The appeal of mining pools
The best way to mine crypto currency is to join a pool, which is nothing more than a network of miners who cooperate, sharing the benefits of blocks. The advantage of contributing to a pool is to increase profits, which are calculated according to the contribution of each miner.
A pool is a form of association comparable to cooperatives. Freelancers, entrepreneurs, or freelancers have been using it for a long time to minimize the risks of going it alone. For beginners in crypto-currency mining, it is more than recommended to join a pool. Indeed, it is very complicated for a miner alone to make his installation profitable the first year.
Contrary to a pool of miners who have a sufficient hash rate to solve a minimum of blocks and therefore make profits. Even if the latter are shared, they have the merit of being predictable and therefore projecting you on the long term. There are a lot of pools, if the one you start with doesn’t suit you, you are perfectly free to change to try to increase your profits.
Would you like to get more information about crypto currencies? Contact us today.
